4 ways to become more customer-centric

Tools

Successful insurers must do more than implement better processes and systems to create a truly customer-focused culture, Insurance Networking News reported. The transformation from an inward-focused organization to one that's customer-centric involves several steps, including:

1. Leadership:  Appoint a senior executive who is tasked with overseeing a company-wide customer engagement strategy. As part of the strategy, the senior leader must align compensation for associates in customer-facing roles with the company's customer service goals, Insurance Networking News noted.

2. Contact: Insurance companies also must develop a plan for customer interactions to present the right offer to the right customer in the preferred channel, Insurance & Technology reported. Such a strategy involves customer needs and preferences, offer eligibility criteria and campaign response history.

Moreover, contact strategies should take into account that today's members expect personalized communications and multichannel interactions from insurance companies. To deliver on consumer expectations of personalized communications, insurers should make call center personnel always available to answer complex questions and offer a "live voice," FierceHealthPayer previously reported

3. Modeling: Insurance companies already use predictive modeling to catch fraudulent claims, but they should also use it to gain customer insight and create custom content rather than one-size-fits-all messaging. With predictive models, insurers can focus on groups of similar consumers to better understand and anticipate their likelihood to respond to an offer, or respond to an offer within a particular channel, Insurance & Technology.

For example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina partnered with a software company to leverage analytics to identify customers who could most benefit from improving their health, determine how best to engage those customers and then develop new products, services and programs accordingly.

4. Data: The switch from customer-aware to customer-centric also requires a database that offers a complete view of customers. Insurers need to break down product silos for a customer-centric data view, Insurance & Technology noted.

That's why Cigna is harnessing data to better understand members. Its data now includes consumer preferences, purchasing habits, demographic information and retail purchasing choices, Joan Kennedy, Cigna's vice president of consumer health engagement, told FierceHealthPayer in a previous interview.

For more:
- here's the Insurance & Technology article
- read the Insurance Networking News article

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